The Problem is you are within what Framework set as targets if you hit the 45w without Thermal Throttling.
100C sustained on the Chip at any significant Load doesnt help with its longetivity even if its within Specs. But its it upper Thermal Limit.
Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I still don’t understand. Of course I’m thermal throttling at 45W, otherwise I’d be going higher, no? And since that is what the cooling system is rated for, that would mean I’m getting pretty much the advertised performance.
Results seem to vary rather easily though. I ran it again, watching more closely this time, and it did a bit better. Held a pretty steady 48-49W, though the range of temps seemed a little bigger. Not sure, I’m not really being very scientific about this, but since I agree it’s probably not great to keep redlining the CPU for several minutes at a time, I think I’m gonna close this case. I think I’m satisfied that my unit is good, at least for now. Perhaps I’ll check it occasionally, but I’d be perfectly fine at 45W until Framework manages to entice me with a mainboard upgrade a few years from now.
the heat pipe is soldered to the vapor chamber. And also since the vapor chamber is effectively one really really large heatpipe, and it have huge area with the heatpipes, that is not an issue.
Vapor chamber just like heat pipe have low-pressure liquid in them, massively increasing thermal transfer (up to 10,000W/mk or something)
The shim being the size of the CPU (and the hotspot) is the problem. Unless it’s made up of a very high-thermally conductive metal, and have near perfect bonding with the chamber (it doesn’t), it adds significant thermal resistance.
I feel like you need a shim, otherwise the cooler surface wont properly contact, as there is quite a big recess.
yep it’s BAD.
woah take it easy. Remember. a lot of us think Framework got scammed by the chinese “cool pad” company. I won’t be surprised if it turns out to be the case.
Also, long-term testing is hard. How do you simulate a 6-month heavy use on the unit without it spending maybe 3 month in the lab?
They are already not new to the ryzen 7, companies are literally shipping ryzen 9 systems practically since batch like, 8. Not to mention september+ orders.
Hey, if you can hand out PTM kits to have the consumer do the replacement for you, that’s less money you have to spend paying someone to do that.
I do have a small problem with putting LM boards in new machines when there is a better alternative available, but changing the production line takes time.
And if anyone is really upset they are getting like, 30W CPU only and 40W fully loaded, remember that you can always re-paste it yourself. Any modern paste, or PTM of your own choice, still work decently well – about 43-44W CPU only and 50W+ fully loaded.
Technically you can say it’s framework’s fault, but go talk to other makers that don’t offer free re-pastes and still put “warranty void if removed” stickers anyway.
I’m still not super happy about the current … heatsink, with the glued shim. I feel like if they decided to go solve this issue they should full-send, and fix the thing once and for all. Though, admittedly the issue is not primarily caused by the shim’s bonding, I still can’t help but feel a little bit unsatisfied.
Maybe when next-gen board come out I can make the new heatsink work with the old one. I don’t know. Might be too much to ask for. CAMM is still on the table.
3 Likes
This is understandable, but I still cannot help but feel really dissatisfied. €2100 later… initial DOA device, replacement that rattles and has issues with the chassis bending to the point where pushing the laptop down slightly at the left or right makes it rock on an even desk and losing paint, some pretty bad backlight bleeding on the screen that I decided not to pursue, issues with keyboard flex (though fixed by a kit), then bugs on Linux that require to boot without PSR and Panel Replay thus sacrificing battery life for stability, then problems with performance degradation that are only fixed with a dangerous fix that risks your mainboard and you are put on the hook if you get it wrong and destroy your board to have the level of advertised performance.
On one hand, I can appreciate that Framework is making the best out of a bad situation in a business sense and that a complete recall would be a financial disaster.
On the other hand, I feel as though this entire situation has really “unsold” the idea of a modular and repairable laptop to me. I thought repairable meant that, in a few years, when I break it, I can fix it. When the battery degrades, I can replace it. As it turns out, it means that you have to constantly stay in contact with Support, have to open up your device and take a million photos every few months to diagnose every single new thing that comes up, see new issues come up all the time, and in the end, you are expected to behave as your own on-field technicial for a highly risky task to get the performance you paid for. Seeing what the repairable and modular experience actually is, I wish I had bought an X1 Extreme instead :(.
1 Like
I’m sorry that you are running into so many issues. If you are truly dissatisfied, you can sell the machine, buy one that will work better for you, and be free of the grief that it has brought you. Best wishes, and have a good day.
1 Like
I am considering that. It’s a hard period right now, with tons of deadlines. When that is out of the way, I will be able to decide between living with it and just keeping it, or selling it, getting out of this gen, and hopefully checking again in a few years, when this lineup will have reached the same level as the 13: you can go out and get a 13 right now and have basically no issues at all thanks to iteration across multiple revisions. Maybe I will try to apply the heat-sink fix or have it done professionally and decide after that. Perhaps even just solving the performance issues (even at a cost) will sweeten the deal.
It’s a pity, because the idea was phenomenal, but the execution did leave a lot to be desired this first gen 
2 Likes
When I first saw what framework was setting out to do, I personally was very excited, but honestly I was a bit worried that many the average consumer would end up with the feeling Luca has at the moment.
Right to repair doesn’t mean repair will be easy. Nor does it mean the device will be the greatest device that was ever conceived.
For my expectations, the FM16 has delivered everything I needed, and I happily replaced a 3080 asus machine with mine.
But there’s definitely an expectation shift that needs to come with the majority of the population for FM’s rtr goal to take flight in the end.
Owning things comes with the costs of maintaining them, understanding how they work, and at the end of the day, maybe some tinkering.
I’d just offer you this thought Luca, does the RMA issues really have anything to do with the design for a modular repairable device? Or perhaps have you had a bad run of luck with your particular device? If a thinkpad generation has a bad run of manufacturing, or is unable to run without thermal throttling (and this is actually almost all of them per notebookcheck past reviews), would you have reacted the same way and sworn off non-modular devices?
2 Likes
Also, for some added context, here’s a chart from the most recent P1 extreme (succeeded the X1 apparently) review on Notebookcheck.
The massive drop halfway through this chart is a huge indication of thermal throttling.
Ironically, I went ahead and added their data for the framework 16 to the chart too. It happens to be the purple line sitting rock steady on top of the P1… My prior post was a complete guess against the current Thinkpad line, though it’s sadly validating to see it was entirely still true.
Lets just say I’ve had some experience with Thinkpad generations and power throttling in the past
1 Like
wow this thread got busy in recent weeks
speaking personally, i got really super frustrated at the difficulty of sourcing ptm7950, then even more frustrated at getting thermal grizzly’s phasesheet once it came to my attention.
knowing that framework will send me a kit for trustworthy ptm replacement makes me comfortable enough to just wait, and not deal with the anxiety of “maybe counterfeit tim”.
i at least can live with the performance i currently get for a few more months.
Did you have issues sourcing the Grizzly PTM? Or have issues with the product itself?
So far mine is holding up great.
the only listings on amazon were resellers that i was having trouble forming the intent to trust, and i have an aversion to making one-off accounts to order from suppliers when it isn’t absolutely crucial.
I gotcha
This is what I ordered back in september:
I can’t 100% without a doubt tell you its the real deal… but… I am 99.9% sure it is.
Was solid at room temp - and the packaging looked legit.
Been running it in the steam deck and on the 7700s for 3 months, and on the CPU for 2ish weeks. No issues so far.
yeah, i know statistically it will PROBABLY be fine, but now i can just not worry about it because framework is doing the thing that basically no other manufacturer does.
really feeling my choice validated by how they handled this. although i DO a little wish they’d reached the conclusion sooner, i understand why they had to take their time for due diligence
4 Likes
So I asked support about the existing stock of LM boards:
“there is still an existing stock of mainboards that utilize Liquid Metal. which we need to process and manage appropriately before transitioning fully to PTM.”
Wonder if “process and manage” means they’re reworking the boards to PTM?
1 Like
I had been ignoring this thread because the number of unread replies was rather daunting, but after the core to core delta on my replacement board has slowly crept up from 6-7C when I received it to now 18-19C, with performance lost to match, I thought I would pop in and see what was going on because it doesn’t even seem worth it to contact support for an RMA if it is going to keep happening.
I am pretty shocked that there is a completely new thermal solution for new units, a replacement kit in the pipeline for affected units, and there is zero discussion or announcement of this anywhere except for this thread and that no email was even sent out. I guess I will go for repasting it to see how everything goes. The resoldering of the shim looks like more than I want to attempt at the moment.
2 Likes
I don’t know, nor am I the right person to be the judge, since I am not an impartial party. I have put in a lot of money and expectation, so there is a lot of emotion involved in this opinion. This might have happened, but I do not have the level of emotional detachment to really be able to say for certain what it was. There is a level of personal experience and emotion connected to people’s opinions or brands / willingness or caution to buy again. I have absolutely met people who had a bad draw of luck with some other programs that I have been using with no real issues swear off those manufacturers - like my MX Master 3 (excellent piece of kit, although hated by many; North Face bags, Sennheiser headphones and other controversial products),
I also agree with your whole statement. Switching to Framework really reminded me of when I switched to Linux back in 2018, so when the Linux desktop was not anywhere near as ready as it was now. I would love to say that my switch to Linux was a simple and clean cut with Windows and I never looked back since, but I would be lying. I second-guessed my choice several times, and even more times I was tempted to switch back. I have even had short periods where I would install Windows again, then go back to Linux again after learning, for the n-th time, that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
Switching to the Framework reminded me of this. Even with the problems I have had, my Framework device still offers a ton of things nothing else on the market does. However, much like my largerly premature switch to the Linux desktop full-time, which makes me a little bit of an early adopter compared to the rest of the folks who switched during the Steam Deck era when everything has gotten much more polished, I might have jumped on this bandwagon a little bit too early, with not the best draw of luck, and it’s understandable to not be completely convinced yet. But, much like with Linux, only time will tell.
Opening it up the amount of liquid metal on one side of the CPU was noticeably thinner than the other, so no mystery in why that delta was present. A quick repaste with some old Noctua NT-H1 I had has me down to a 4-5C delta, a sustained 52W power draw, and above 15k in Cinebench, though the fans are a bit slower to ramp down now. While I had it open I repasted the 7700S and my GPU Hotspot went down 15C so that is neat, though now it has a small bit of coil while I didn’t notice before.
Gonna order some PTM7950 and a spare heatsync to monkey around with and see how that goes. Thanks for the inspiration, all.
3 Likes
Any way to know if I have the LM or PTM one? Mine was ordered on 11th November, but has one core that goes to 100°C while others stay at 80°C.
Given the temps and the order date, it’s probably still LM. I don’t think you’d see that kind of temperature delta.
EDIT: Removed speculation on my part. Sorry for making it sound like a sure thing, I misunderstood what “still have units with LM installed” means.
2 Likes
You won’t say that when your X1 Extreme break down in exactly 2 days after warranty period ends and they quote you a $800 repair for a main board, because your SSD stopped showing up in BIOS.
I actually have yet to see a modern Lenovo (post the logo change) live past 5 years without major repairs. Broken BIOS, cracked/broken mechanicals, broken motherboard, etc. hinge splitting in half and cracking the screen, dead keyboards … all sorts. Thinkpad, Ideapad, Legion … I don’t know, but always. something just went really wrong.
It must be really unfortunate to encounter all of these problems.
Though part of this is also the early adopter problem – it’s a new platform (16 inch), without too rigorous a testing, because Framework need it on the market. And here we are, discussing thermal issues, chassis flex, screen bending, keyboard fit, etc.
Technically, the thing still works. and the issue is not as wide spread as it might seem to be.
But at least they are trying to address everything they possibly can with good reason. That’s the important bit.
2 Likes